A person who was at Revel during the incident had heard the punch was an "uppercut." (This is hearsay, but we're noting it here to explain why we changed the headline.) A Revel employee, who saw the end of the altercation, claimed he'd been told by security that Rice had hit Palmer "like he punched a guy," and that surveillance video showed it was far from "a minor incident," as Rice's attorney had initially characterized it.

Update: Adam Schefter, on ESPN, is saying that much of the leniency serves from Rice's meeting with Roger Goodell, in which Rice reportedly "showed him more videotape than... everybody has seen." I am forced to wonder what mitigating circumstances could possibly be found in a video that indisputably ends with Rice knocking out his fiancée.